Where are thy palms, thy branches, and thy verse? Hosanna! heark! why doest thou stay? Arise arise! And with his healing bloud anoint thine eyes, EASTER HYMN. DEATH and darkness, get you packing! Seeks in thee for perfect beauty; The weak and aged, tir'd with length Of daies, from thee look for new strength; As pleasant as if with the brest. Then unto Him who thus hath thrown, Even to contempt, thy kingdome down, To Him be glory, power, praise, From this unto the last of daies! THE HOLY COMMUNION. WELCOME Sweet, sacred feast! O welcome life! Dead I was, and deep in trouble; But grace and blessings came with thee so rife, And thus at first when things were rude, They by thy word their beauty had and date And still must be ; Nothing that is or lives But hath his quicknings and reprieves, As thy hand opes or shuts; Healings and cuts, Darkness and daylight, life and death, Are but meer leaves turn'd by thy breath Spirits without thee die, And blackness sits On the divinest wits, As on the sun ecclipses lie. But that great darkness at thy death, When the veyl broke with thy last breath, The way to thee; And now by these sure, sacred ties, After thy blood Our sov'rain good, Had clear'd our eies, And given us sight; Thou dost unto thyself betroth Our souls and bodies both In everlasting light. Was't not enough that thou hadst payd the price, And given us eies When we had none, but thou must also take Us by the hand, And keep us still awake, When we would sleep, Or from thee creep, Who without thee cannot stand? Was't not enough to lose thy breath And blood by an accursed death, To us, that did bereave Thee of them both, these seals, the means That should both cleanse And keep us so, Who wrought thy wo? O rose of Sharon ! O the lilly How art thou now, thy flock to keep, Become both food, and Shepheard to thy sheep! PSALM CXXI. Up to those bright and gladsome hills, Whence flowes my weal and mirth, I look, and sigh for Him who fills Unseen both heaven and earth. He is alone my help and hope, The glorious God is my sole stay, The cold by night, the heat by day, He keeps me from the spite of foes; Whether abroad amidst the crowd, Or else within my door, He is my pillar and my cloud, Now and for evermore. AFFLICTION. PEACE, peace: it is not so. Thou dost miscall Thy physick; pills that change Thy sick accessions into setled health; Ordain night too? And in the greater world display All flesh is clay, thou know'st; and but that God And by a fruitfull change of frosts and showres Thou wouldst to weeds and thistles quite disperse, They are heaven's husbandry, the famous fan, All would be drought and leanness; not a tree Beauty consists in colours; and that's best L |